Perks of a Typhoon Season

Tropical Storms Enhance Math Skills

I remember a certain storm about 10 years ago in the Philippines that caused me to do a lot of sittin' and pondern'. It's what one does when one looses power for hours on end. During this particular power outage, I was sitting at home sweating like a pig on a Fiesta morning when I spotted a 29 oz can of Del Monte Peach Halves staring at me from the pantry. What caught my eye was the "Halves" on the label. Sooo, out of curiosity (and a bit of hunger), I decided to open that can and count the peach halves. After counting nine halves, my ponderance kicked in. Why nine and not ten? Then, I turned the can around to see where it indicated "Serves 6." So, the Einstein in me took over and I deduced that 6 servings equates to 1.5 halves per person. Okay, there is some sense to that. Who in their right mind would go through the trouble of slicing peach halves? This led me to question that old slogan "An Apple a Day Keeps the Dr. Away." Because a large apple contains about 25g of sugar, wouldn't it be more medically prudent to say "A Half an Apple?"

Because nobody has ever declared that eating only half of a fruit was beneficially acceptable, this peach-count thing was beginning to irk me. Was I missing something here? Then I realized that if they added the extra peach half, that would equal 5 whole peaches per can and would require a can label revision to say "Serves 5" because eating 1.66 peaches makes absolutely no sense. With fewer servings listed on the label, it also means they would have to charge less... in marketing theory.

I guess when you summarily include these questionable marketing tactics with the unprincipled 10 pack-of-hotdogs/8 pack-of-buns combination (a food dilemma that’s been haunting people for too long), it makes absolutely no sense to us consumers. But, using this same logic, if they did reduce the number of Peach servings to 5, maybe consumers would buy two cans instead of just one (hotdog marketing 101). It's a good thing though that some brainiac didn't come up with the idea of selling hotdog halves, 'cause that would really screw with backyard BBQ's and tailgate parties.

These corporate talley whackers either have these marketing strategies down to a science or they are just taking advantage of poor consumer math skills. I mean, who in their right mind would do all these calculations in the supermarket aisle to determine a product's value? I guess for the marketers it all works out in the long run for them and we get stuck with leftover hotdog buns and an extra half peach.

Just after concluding my research (and destroying the evidence thereof), the power was restored. In my final conclusion, it would have been much easier for me to simply assume that someone at Del Monte is eating all those extra peach halves. I also deduced two more things... that typhoons can lead to sharpening one's math skills and eating a full can of peaches helps bring the power back.